Steve King, representative for the 5th district of Iowa, deserves to be booted from office perhaps more forcefully than any other GOP incumbent. Why? Because Senator Joe McCarthy is a hero of his.
King was instrumental in blocking an effort to name a post office in Berkeley after longtime Berkeley Councilwoman Maudelle Shirek, questioning whether the 94-year-old activist represents American values. Berkeley Rep. Barbara Lee, in a statement after the vote, blasted King, saying his "campaign of innuendo and unsubstantiated 'concern' is better suited to the era of Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover than today's House of Representatives."
To which King responded: "I think that if Barbara Lee would read the history of Joe McCarthy, she would realize that he was a hero for America."
More on King and the shitstorm below.
On the national day of prayer, Rep. King offered up these very moving sentiments concerning the victims of Hurricane Katrina:
"Today on this day of prayer and remembrance, I ask Iowans to take time today to pray for the families of those we have lost, for the people still living the tragedy and for the people looking down the long road of recovery. We stand behind those affected by Hurricane Katrina with our faith, prayers and our actions."
He then promptly voted no on $52 million to help victims of the disaster - one of only eleven legislators to do so. As Dave Yoder points out in a scathing editorial published in the Sioux City Journal, King also supports tax cuts for the rich and told his constiuents "that the elderly and poor will have to forgo changes in prescription drugs if they want to help hurricane victims."
Quoting Yoder again: "If you want to know how King feels about aiding the hurricane victims, you can go back to Sept. 2, a week before the vote on the $52 billion and four days after Katrina hit New Orleans and Southern Mississippi. On one side of The Journal's page 1 screamed the headline "'Desperate SOS,' New Orleans descends into anarchy." On the other side was King in his first public statement on the disaster saying the hurricane will grease the skids to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
King also credits himself with introducing a successful amendment to HR 2601, which prohibits the US government from funding for AIDS organizations in the developing world - in the words of the amendment "certifying that the NGO has in effect a policy explicitly opposing prostitution."
Finally, according to King's own website, "this year, King was chosen by his colleagues to chair the Conservative Opportunity Society, a powerful and legendary House caucus that is best known for energizing Republicans to regain the majority of the House of Representatives in 1994."
Well, enough of that. Any Iowans out there able to tell me the chances of picking this idiot off?
Oh by the way, kudos also to The Des Moines Register and The Burlington Hawk Eye for similarly excoriating Steve "McCarthy" King.